The girl was soon by her side.
"Come with me .-- There is a face you shall see but twice in life;--this day,"-- and Hilda paused, and the rigid and almost colossal beauty of her countenance softened.
"And when again, my grandmother ?" "Child, put thy warm hand in mine.

So! the vision darkens from me .-- when again, saidst thou, Edith ?--alas, I know not." While thus speaking, Hilda passed slowly by the Roman fountain and the heathen fane, and ascended the little hillock.

There on the opposite side of the summit, backed by the Druid crommel and the Teuton altar, she seated herself deliberately on the sward.
A few daisies, primroses, and cowslips, grew around; these Edith began to pluck.

Singing, as she wove, a simple song, that, not more by the dialect than the sentiment, betrayed its origin in the ballad of the Norse [11], which had, in its more careless composition, a character quite distinct from the artificial poetry of the Saxons.

The song may be thus imperfectly rendered: "Merrily the throstle sings Amid the merry May; The throstle signs but to my ear; My heart is far away! Blithely bloometh mead and bank; And blithely buds the tree; And hark!--they bring the Summer home; It has no home with me! They have outlawed him--my Summer! An outlaw far away! The birds may sing, the flowers may bloom, O, give me back my May!" As she came to the last line, her soft low voice seemed to awaken a chorus of sprightly horns and trumpets, and certain other wind instruments peculiar to the music of that day.